Corporate and legal

Alex Kibkalo, a former senior architect at Microsoft who most recently served as a director of product management in 5nine Software (according to his LinkedIn profile), has been arrested for allegedly stealing Windows-related trade secrets while working for Microsoft.

According to a complaint filed on March 17 in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, Kibkalo -- a Russian national and former Microsoft employee based in Lebanon -- passed on trade secrets involving Windows 8 to an unnamed technology blogger in France.

Comcast will now have to deal with US states as well as the US Justice Department if it expects to win approval to buy Time Warner Cable.

Florida is part of a multistate group investigating the proposed merger to make sure if doesn't run afoul of antitrust laws, the Florida state attorney general's office told CNET on Wednesday.

"We are part of a multistate group reviewing the proposed transaction along with the U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division," the Florida state attorney general's office said to CNET in an e-mailed statement. "The matter is also … Read more

Microsoft's crusade against pirated software was bolstered on Tuesday with the release of a study that found stolen programs are going to cause issues this year for both consumers and enterprise customers.

The study, conducted by research firm IDC and the National University of Singapore, found that consumers worldwide will spend $25 billion and collectively waste 1.2 billion hours this year as the result of downloading pirated software. On the business side, companies will spend $500 billion on fixes in 2014 to issues with pirated software.

Although Microsoft didn't work on the study, it was released as … Read more

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's true, Google should be very flattered by the efforts of a regional wireless provider to bring a 1Gbps fiber network to Mississippi.

C Spire is using the Google Fiber business plan that the search giant has employed in building 1 Gpbs fiber networks in Kansas City; Provo, Utah; and Austin, Texas. C Spire is using the plan as a blueprint for building its own fiber-to-the-home network that the company hopes will eventually blanket Mississippi.

For a state such as Mississippi, an ultra high-speed fiber optic network, could … Read more

Dropbox is said to soon be enabling an upcoming feature that lets users create distinct work and personal accounts without having to log in and out, according to The Verge.

The tech news source got its hands on an email that Dropbox recently sent to its business users that said the company plans to launch the feature on April 9. The company originally announced the feature last November, but it's been unclear when it would roll out.

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it has arrested 14 men who were allegedly operating a child pornography Web site on the anonymous Tor network.

The arrests were the culmination of one of the agency's largest ever online child exploitation investigations -- dubbed "Operation Round Table." The authorities have identified 251 victims who were exploited on the site. The majority of the victims, 243, were male and their ages ranged from 3 to 17; they were identified as being from 39 US states and five foreign countries.

Pandora is making a few changes to its premium streaming music service -- most notably a fee hike for new monthly subscribers.

The company announced Tuesday that because of rising royalty rates it pays to musicians, it's having to up its monthly fee for the first time since Pandora One debuted in 2009. Starting in May, new members will have to pay $4.99 per month rather than the current rate of $3.99 per month.

"The costs of delivering this service have grown considerably," Pandora wrote in a blog post. "For example, the royalty rates … Read more

Samsung might be a giant company with massive amounts of revenue, but that doesn't mean that its executives make massive amounts of money -- at least when compared to other executives in Silicon Valley.

The company revealed at its annual shareholder meeting last week that its leadership executive team, comprised of its three co-CEOs and CFO, collectively made 33.9 billion Korean won, about $31 million, during the company's 2013 fiscal year. Samsung went on to say that compared to competitors in the marketplace, it's far behind other companies, including Apple, which hit nearly $300 million in … Read more

Apple manufacturing partner Pegatron is apparently opening up new factory space and recruiting workers to build the iPhone 6, according to the report. The production would begin in the second quarter, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.

Apple declined CNET's request for comment.

Pegatron wouldn't be the only manufacturer of Apple's flagship phone. The Commercial Times said Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, would be the primary manufacturer of the phone.